Inheritance

 Part I 

 CHAPTER 1 

LAURA and Paul made the bed together, laughing as they raced to see whose side would be finished first. I’ll never learn, Paul sighed in mock resignation when he lost. Women were born to make beds; men were born to lie in them.

"They were born to lie about them, Laura retorted. When we’re married, you’ll be amazed how fast you learn all kinds of things."

I’m fast at the important ones, he said, like falling in love with you.

She laughed, loving the way his smile and glance embraced her, the deepening of his voice when he spoke only to her, the memory of his hand on her breast when she had awakened that morning and they had moved into each other’s arms, warm and half asleep, closer and closer until he was inside her and they had begun another day joined together, just as they planned to be joined as husband and wife for the rest of their lives.

But then her eyes grew somber. How can we be so happy? It isn’t right to be laughing and doing everything the way we always have, when Owen isn’t here. And won’t be, ever again. And he won’t see us married, and he wanted to so much.

Paul knotted his tie and pulled on his suit jacket, glancing in the mirror as he ran a hand over his unruly black hair. He knew we were getting married; that was what he cared about. He put his arms around Laura and held her to him. And you know he hated fancy parties and ceremonies.

He wouldn’t have hated our wedding, Laura said. Oh, Paul, I can’t bear it that he’s gone!

I know. Paul lay his cheek on her hair, picturing the proud head and piercing eyes of Owen Salinger, his great-uncle and his very good friend. And you’re right, he would have loved our wedding, because he loved you and thought the smartest thing I ever did was agree with him. He held Laura away from him, searching her eyes for what she was feeling. Her slender face, with high cheekbones and wide, generous mouth, was somber in thought, as if frozen in time by a painter who had caught her arresting beauty but could only hint at the changing expressions that made her vivid face come alive with joy or sorrow, warmth or coldness, pleasure or dismissal. And no painter could capture the elusiveness that made everyone, even Paul, wonder if they really knew her or could keep her close, or her biting wit that contrasted so intriguingly with her innocence, making others remember her unpredictability long after they had forgotten the exact chestnut of her hair, glinting red in the sun, or the precise dark blue of her wide, clear eyes.

Paul brushed back the tendrils of hair that curled along her cheeks. You’re so pale, my love. Are you worried about this afternoon? Or is it just your suit? Do you have to wear black? We’re not going to a funeral, after all; we’re only going to Owen’s house to listen to Parkinson read his will.

It’s what I feel like wearing, Laura said. A will reading is like a second funeral, isn’t it? We keep slamming shut the doors of Owen’s life. She slipped out of his arms. Shouldn’t we go?

Yes. He locked the door of his apartment, and they walked down the two flights of stairs to the tiny lobby. Boston’s August heat rose to meet them in shimmering waves that made trees and gardens ripple like reflections in a pond. Children danced on the grass, dreamlike in the white-hot sun, and sailboats on the Charles were like white birds, dipping and swooping above cool splashing waves.

I’d forgotten how hot it gets, Paul murmured, pulling off his jacket. Strange, isn’t it, to be thinking about Owen here, in the city, when he’d never spend August anywhere but the Cape? They reached his car and he turned on the air conditioning as they drove away. My God, I miss him. Almost three weeks already, but I keep thinking I’ll see him for dinner and hear him tell me again what I ought to be doing with my life.

Laura sat close to him and he held her hand as he drove beneath the arching trees along Commonwealth Avenue. If I didn’t have you, he said quietly, I’d feel as if the center of my world was gone.

And so would I. She twined her fingers in his, responding to the pressure of his thigh against hers, his shoulder against hers, the strength and desire that flowed between them whenever they touched. It was the same wherever they were, whatever they did: the rest of the world would disappear, leaving them alone with the love and passion that had grown steadily ever since the day, two years before, when he had finally noticed her.

So would I, she said again. Because even though she had her brother Clay, and Paul’s family, who had taken her in four years ago, when she was eighteen, and made her feel like one of them, it was Owen, the head of the family, who had adored her and who had been the adored center of her life, until she met Paul. Then she had clung to both of them. And now, when she still felt young and unsure of herself and hadn’t yet begun the things Owen wanted her to do . . . now he was gone and there was only Paul to take care of her.

Do you think we’ll be there long? she asked Paul. She didn’t want to go at all. She didn’t want to see everyone gathered in Owen’s house where she had lived so happily—and still lived, though she had spent most of her time with Paul since Owen died—and hear the family lawyer read Owen’s words when what she longed to hear was Owen’s voice. She didn’t want to hear Owen’s sons Felix and Asa talk about finally being free to do what they wanted with the empire their father had built with love and pride, when their plans were so different from the ones Owen had been sharing with her for the past years, up to the time of his stroke.

Not long, Paul said, turning up Beacon Hill and finding a parking place near Owen’s enormous corner town house. It’s mostly a formality. Felix and Asa get the remaining stock in the company that Owen had held, the girls will get enough to make them happy, and I’ll get a token because he loved me even though he knew I preferred a camera to a high-level job in his hotel empire. Half an hour, probably, for Parkinson to read the whole thing. Standing beside the car, he took Laura’s hand again. I’m sorry you have to go through it, but since Parkinson specifically asked for you—

It’s all right, Laura said, but she was knotting up inside as they climbed the steps to the front door that had been hers for four years, to the rooms where she had lived as Owen’s friend, nurse, protégée, and, finally, as close to a granddaughter as anyone could be.

When the butler opened the door she looked automatically across the marble foyer at the branching staircase, almost expecting to see Owen Salinger descending the stairs at his dignified pace—ruddy, healthy, his bushy eyebrows and drooping mustache like flying buttresses as he sent orders, opinions, and declarations to every corner of his house. Her eyes filled with tears. He had been so courtly, commanding, and overwhelming, she couldn’t imagine a world without him. Where could she go without missing him?

You’ll always miss him. But get today over with and get on with your life. That’s what Owen would say. And he’d be right. He was always right.

She looked up at Paul. Let’s get away from here when this is over.

Good idea, he said, and smiled at her, relieved that her somberness was lifting. It had seemed exaggerated from the beginning, making her appear worried, almost fearful, instead of mournful, as he would have expected. One of her moods, he thought, and reminded himself of how alone she’d been when Owen first paid attention to her and gave her the kind of enveloping love he bestowed on only a chosen few. Relax, he said as they went in. I’m here. We’re together.

His hand held hers tightly and they went into the library where the Salinger family had already assembled, crowded together on leather couches and armchairs, the younger great-granddaughters perched on ottomans or sitting cross-legged on the Tabriz rugs Owen and Iris had collected in their travels. At the far end of the room, near the mahogany and marble fireplace, Laura saw Clay talking to Allison and Thad, and she smiled at him, thanking him silently for taking time from his job in Philadelphia to be near her for the will reading.

Behind the massive library table Elwin Parkinson, Owen’s lawyer, sat with Felix and Asa Salinger, Owen’s sons, the heirs to his empire and his fortune. Paul shook hands with them, paused to greet his parents, and then he and Laura went to a far corner, standing before a leaded glass window set in a book-lined wall. He put his arm around her; she was trembling, and he kissed the top of her head lightly as Parkinson began to speak.

"I have before me the last will and testament of Owen Salinger, dated three years ago this month. The non-family members are named first. Heading the list is a bequest of five hundred thousand dollars to Rosa Curren who, in Owen’s words, ‘kept my house and my family for fifty years and sustained me through the darkest years after my beloved Iris died.’

There are smaller bequests, Parkinson went on, to several of the longtime employees and concierges of the Salinger Hotels; various gardeners, barbers, and tailors; the captain of a sailboat in the Caribbean; a salesman at a boot shop in Cambridge; and sundry others I will not take the time to list. There are also sizable bequests to organizations which Owen held dear, foremost among them the Boston Art Museum, the Boston Symphony, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, but also including the Foxy Theater Troupe of Cambridge, the Wellfleet Oysters, and the Cape Cod Mermaids.

A rustle of laughter whispered through the room at the reminder of Owen’s eccentricities and whimsies when it came to spreading his wealth; the family had long since gotten used to them, sometimes even agreeing with them. Only Felix and Asa were flat-faced; they had never found their father amusing.

Parkinson pulled a separate document from his briefcase and read from it. Of my thirty percent holdings in Salinger Hotels Incorporated, I leave twenty-eight percent, divided equally, to my sons Felix and Asa—’ 

Twenty-eight percent? Asa sprang to his feet, peering over Parkinson’s shoulder. He owned thirty p-p-percent. We share thirty percent. There was never any question of that. He peered more closely. What the hell is that you’re reading? That’s n-n-n-not the will.

Felix sat in silence, staring at his locked hands as Parkinson cleared his throat and said, This is a codicil Owen added to his will in July.

Last m-m-m-month? Asa demanded. After his stroke?

Parkinson nodded. If you will allow me, I should read it in its entirety.

If we allow you! Asa repeated grimly. Read it!

Once again Parkinson cleared his throat.  ‘I, Owen Salinger, in full possession of my faculties, dictate this codicil to the will I made three years ago. Of my thirty percent holdings in Salinger Hotels Incorporated, I leave twenty-eight percent, divided equally, to my sons Felix and Asa Salinger. And to my most beloved Laura Fairchild, who has brought joy and love to the last years of my life, I leave the remaining two percent of my shares in Salinger Hotels Incorporated, plus one hundred percent of the Owen Salinger Corporation, a separate entity, which owns the four hotels with which I began the Salinger chain sixty years ago, in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, and also my house and furnishings on Beacon Hill, where she has been living and should continue to live. She will know exactly what to do with her inheritance; she has shared my ideas and helped me make new plans, and I trust her to keep our dream alive and make it flourish.’ 

In the brief, heavy silence that enveloped the room, Laura’s eyes were closed, warm salt tears flowing down her cheeks. Dearest Laura, I’ve left you a little something in my will. That was all he had said, and she’d thought of money, perhaps enough to buy a small lodge and have something of her own, even when she was married to Paul, where she could put to use everything Owen had taught her about hotels.

Across the room, she saw Clay’s look of excitement; his eyes danced and his lips mouthed, Wow! You pulled it off! Shocked and angry, she turned away.

Paul had followed her look and was watching Clay with a puzzled frown. In the rest of the room voices had risen to a cacophony while Parkinson banged a brass letter opener against an inkwell, trying to regain control.

I w-w-won’t have it! Asa fumed. Enough is enough! We’ve g-g-given her a home for years—

Owen gave her a home, Leni said quietly, but no one paid attention.

I think it’s lovely, Allison exclaimed. Laura took care of Grandfather, why shouldn’t he give her something if that was what he wanted?

He didn’t know what he wanted. Felix’s hard-edged words rode over all the voices in the room. He stood, putting a restraining hand on Parkinson’s shoulder to keep him silent, and waited for the family to quiet down and give him their attention. They did; they knew it was he, and not Asa, who was the real head of the Salingers now.

He didn’t know what he wanted, Felix repeated in measured words. He was a sick old man who was manipulated and terrorized by a greedy, conniving witch and for the entire month after his stroke—

Felix! Paul’s deep voice cut across his uncle’s raspy one. What the hell are you talking about?

You fucking bastard! Clay bellowed, riding over Paul’s words. Who the fuck do you—

Keep your mouth shut, Felix snapped and went on, never breaking stride. —entire month after his stroke was a helpless invalid who could neither move nor speak—

Felix! Paul said again.

He could speak! Laura said. He talked to me—we talked—

"—neither move nor speak intelligibly, and it was obvious to everyone that he had lost his ability to think clearly. And that obvious fact was taken advantage of by this girl, who was only one of his whims until she wormed her way into his life, and then, when he was dying, kept the nurses out of his room so she could be alone with him and manipulate him into changing his will—"

That’s enough, Paul said furiously. God damn it, Felix, you’re mad; what the hell has gotten into you? This is a goddam pack of lies—

Owen didn’t want the nurses! Laura cried. She had barely heard Paul. He told me to keep them out! She shivered with cold; her tears had dried in cold streaks on her cheeks. He didn’t want strangers; he wanted me!

He didn’t know what he wanted— Felix began for the third time.

Shut up! Paul roared. Let Elwin finish reading! and by God you’ll explain this to me later; you’ll apologize to Laura and to the whole family—

Ignoring Paul, Felix put his head back, looked down his thin nose, and flung his voice at Laura. "He didn’t know anything, did he? He didn’t know that you’re a criminal with a record, that you have a criminal for a brother, and that you lied to him—you lied to all of us—for four years while we took you in and gave you everything."

Laura’s gasp was like a cloth ripping across the dead silence of the room.

Four years, Felix said, his words like hammer blows. And we all know that four years ago, the summer you and your brother appeared at our door, our house was robbed of an irreplaceable collection of jewelry and—

We didn’t have anything to do with that! Clay shouted.

Everyone was talking at once, turning to each other in alarm, calling out to Felix to explain what he meant. But Felix spoke directly to Laura. "You don’t think we’d believe that! From the evidence I now possess, I have concluded that you came here for one purpose only—to rob us—and then decided to stay when you saw you could wrap your tentacles around my father, just as you’d done once before with another old man who left you a fortune before he died, and then!—he shouted above his family’s rising clamor, with a glance at Paul—then you wrapped yourself around a young man of wealth, because professional fortune hunters never miss a chance, do they, Miss Fairchild?"

I’m not! I loved Owen! But the words lacked force; she felt crushed beneath too many accusations. I love Paul. You have no right to lie—

"Don’t you talk to me of right! You came to us with lies; you came to entrap, to ensnare; you wormed your way into our household . . . and you robbed us of my wife’s jewels and almost killed my father!"

It’s a goddam lie! Clay shouted. We didn’t do that job; we changed our—

He stopped, his face deathly pale. Laura, her tears gone, almost numb with cold, felt Paul’s arm drop from her shoulder, saw Leni’s look of disbelief, and saw Allison—dear Allison who had been so good to her—stare at her in shock and growing anger.

You changed nothing Felix said with contempt. His eyes had gleamed when Clay blurted his fatal words, but then he masked his triumph and now stood at the table with the look of a remote god. You’re a couple of common criminals, you’ve never been anything else, and I’m going to see to it that everyone knows it. I’m going to break that codicil in court; I’m going to see to it that you don’t get a penny of my father’s fortune. You’ll leave the way you came, with nothing; you’ll leave now, and you’ll never have anything to do with any of us again!

Laura put a hand against the windowpane to steady herself. The glass was warm in the sunlight, but nothing could warm the coldness within her. She felt a movement beside her and looked up. Paul had moved away from her; he was looking at her as if he were meeting her for the first time.

It was all over. The nightmare she had lived with for four years had become real.

 CHAPTER 2 

IT looks awfully tough, Clay mumbled as he eyed the clustered rooftops of the gray shingled Cape Cod mansions that were their target. Guardhouse, fence, and I saw a dog . . .  He was trying to sound like a cool professional instead of a seventeen-year-old in unfamiliar territory, but his hand was cold as it clasped Laura’s. Hers was cold, too, but she looked calm to him; she always seemed more daring and determined than he, but then she was a year older and had already graduated from high school. Moving closer to her in the back seat of the rented car Ben was driving past the Salingers’ summer compound, he said, I’ll bet they have lots of dogs.

Probably, Ben agreed. He slowed to catch a glimpse of the ocean and the sailboats and motorboats moored at private docks. But once you get me inside, I won’t have any trouble getting away.

They can follow a boat as well as a car, Clay argued. Why’d you pick this place, anyway? It’s a goddam fortress.

Cut it out, Laura said, her voice low. We’ll get it over with and then quit. I told Ben this was the last time I’d help him; you can, too. I wouldn’t do this one, except I promised. But you know—her voice wavered as she thought back to the pine forests and stretches of stark sand dunes and wild grass they’d driven past in their circuit of the Cape before coming to Osterville—it is kinda scary to be this far from home, and everything so . . . different . . . 

Ben caught her last words and grinned at them in the rear-view mirror. I thought I taught you to have more confidence in yourself. Is there any house in the world my clever brother and sister can’t break into? You’ve helped me crack some very tight places.

In New York, Clay said. We know New York. It’s got alleys and subways and crowds of people you can disappear in, not a million acres you have to be a cross-country runner to beat the dogs across—

Five acres, Ben said softly. The Salingers’ summer home. Six houses on five acres surrounded by a fence with one guardhouse. That’s all we know so far. We’ll know more after you and Laura start working there. Listen, Clay, I’m counting on you. Both of you. I trust you.

Laura felt the rush of pride Ben’s praise always gave her. He was much older than she, the child of her mother’s first marriage. Her mother had remarried when Ben was almost nine, and a year later Laura was born, and then Clay. They’d always adored Ben, trailing after him around their small rented house in Queens, trying to peek into his private attic room, following him outside until he sent them home. Then, when Laura was fourteen, her parents were killed in a car accident; and Ben Gardner, twenty-three years old, handsome, grown-up, with lots of girlfriends, suddenly became Laura’s and Clay’s guardian. From then on he was more like a mother and father than a stepbrother to them: he stayed home most nights to be with them, he took them for rides in his car, he helped them with their schoolwork.

He also taught them to steal.

Of all the jobs Ben ever had, stealing was the only one that kept him interested. He didn’t make a lot of money at it and kept apologizing for not being professional enough, but he wouldn’t join a gang and never found a way to become part of the tight-knit group of fences who controlled prices and outlets in New York. Still, he stayed with it, and filled in by working as a waiter. They’d moved to a tiny, dark apartment way up on West End Avenue, but still they had lots of expenses, and stealing was what Ben had always done so he kept on doing it—better than ever, he said, because now he had assistants.

Clay and Laura were good. Their bodies were agile, their fingers quick, their minds alert as they climbed drainpipes or tangled branches of ancient ivy, slipping silently through narrow windows into darkened rooms, opening the windows wider for Ben, afterward climbing swiftly down and disappearing in the shadows of the graffiti-coated, anonymous subway.

They learned fast and trained themselves to remember everything. They could distinguish between a policeman’s footsteps and those of a casual passerby; after one tour of a room they knew indelibly the location of stereo equipment, paintings and objets d’art; they could hear an elevator start up in a lobby twenty floors below; they had a feather touch and were almost invisible when they shoplifted or picked pockets on the subway or among the after-work crowd jostling for cabs on Wall Street.

It was always exciting and dangerous and, best of all, it was something the three of them could share: planning the jobs, carrying them out, reliving them later. So when Laura suddenly found herself wanting to stop, she kept it to herself. She couldn’t tell Ben she’d begun to hate what they did; it would be like saying she hated him, when he was the only one who loved her and Clay and took care of them.

But then things got harder. She was lonely. It was her senior year in high school and all the other girls had friends to bring home after school, or have sleep over, or stand around in the schoolyard with, giggling about dates and new clothes, Saturday night parties and boys feeling them up, monthly cramps, and their awful parents. But Laura couldn’t get close to anyone and so she had no girlfriends or boyfriends; she didn’t go to Saturday night parties; and she couldn’t have a girlfriend sleep over, because Ben slept in one room and she and Clay in the other, with a pair of drapes that they’d found in a dumpster on Orchard Street hanging between them. She could talk casually to classmates in school corridors about their studies or a show on television, but never about how she felt inside or what she really thought and dreamed about. She was always alone.

But even worse than being lonely, she was afraid. Ever since she and Clay were caught, when she was fifteen, she’d been afraid. Everything about it was still fresh; she’d never forget it: the pounding footsteps chasing them down the street, the gray smell of the police station, the way a policeman pinched her fingertips when he rolled them on the grimy ink pad, the flat face of the policeman who took her picture, growling, Turn left, turn right, look straight at the camera, you little cunt . . .  and then grabbed her ass and squeezed so hard she cried out.

Ben came down to the station with a lawyer he knew, who got them out on bond, and then nothing happened for almost a year until their case came up. They were found guilty, and put on probation for another year, and released in the custody of Melody Chase. She was just one of Ben’s girlfriends, but he’d been sure the social workers in court wouldn’t release two kids in the custody of a single guy, and also he didn’t want the law to connect him with them, so he brought Melody to court with him and she said she was Laura’s and Clay’s aunt, and the four of them walked out together. Nobody cared, really; all the court wanted was to pass them on to somebody else.

So they were free. But the police had their pictures and fingerprints, and Laura dreamt about it for weeks: she had a record.

That was one of the reasons she finally told Ben she didn’t want to help him anymore. She didn’t want to be a thief; she wanted to go to college and make friends. She’d had some parts in school plays, and she thought she might like to be an actress—or anything, really, as long as she could be proud of herself.

They quarreled about it. Ben knew she felt bad about picking pockets; she always mailed wallets back to people after taking out the money because she hated thinking about them losing all the things inside: poems and recipes, scribbled addresses and phone numbers, membership cards, insurance cards, credit cards that were no use to her, and especially pictures of people they probably loved. When she told Ben she didn’t want to steal anymore, he thought she was being sentimental, the way she was about wallets. But she’d figure out a way to make him understand that there was more to it, that she was really serious. She had to; she’d promised herself the Salinger job would be the last one she’d do. Ever.

I know you trust us, said Clay, still clinging to Laura’s hand in the back seat of the car, "but we’ve never done a job in a place like this. What the hell do they want with all this space and light?"

Ben stopped the car a block from the guardhouse. You’re due there in five minutes. Keep your cool; just remember how we rehearsed it. And don’t worry; you’ll get hired. Rich people in summer houses are always desperate for help. I’ll be right here, waiting for you.

"He isn’t the one who has to go work for them, Clay muttered as the guard passed them through the gate and they followed his pointing finger to a nearby cottage. He just sits around while we plan everything and then he waltzes in and lifts what’s-her-name’s jewels and waltzes out. And we’re still here."

That’s not true, Laura said hotly. Ben won’t do anything till we work out an alibi. She turned her back on Clay’s scowl, and then kept turning, around and around, as she walked, straining to see as much as she could through the thickly wooded grounds. She caught glimpses of velvety lawns, the windowed bay of a house, splashes of color from flower gardens, a pond with a fountain, a greenhouse roof. The estate of six houses clustered along the ocean was bigger than it had seemed from the road, and much grander. Like a picture postcard, Laura thought: everything beautiful, with no torn-up streets, no graffiti, and no litter. Anyway, she said to Clay, we’re not hanging around very long after he’s done it; just a little while, so nobody thinks we’re connected to the robbery.

"We’re still here," Clay repeated glumly.

They reached the small stone cottage with flowered curtains at the window and slatted furniture on the front porch, and Laura swallowed hard. Damn it, we’ve been through this a hundred times. I’m already jumpy, and you’re making it worse. Ben knows what he’s doing. And he’s the one who’s really taking chances: he could get hurt, or caught, and what could we do to help him?

Clay was silent. Laura knew he wasn’t really angry; he worshiped Ben. It had been all she could do to keep him in school after he turned sixteen and wanted to drop out and do whatever Ben did. She didn’t know what would happen now that she’d graduated. If she could get enough money for college, she wanted to move out; she dreamed of a room of her own, with shelves of books and posters on the wall, and pretty furniture, and her favorite music on the radio. But then what would happen to Clay?

See you later, Clay said as a tall woman approached them. She’s yours. I’m for the head maintenance guy at the greenhouse. He was gone as the woman reached Laura.

Laura Fairchild? I’m Leni Salinger; let’s sit on the porch and talk, shall we? The cottage belongs to Jonas—the guard, you know—and I don’t like to take over his living room unless it’s raining. But it’s pleasant today, isn’t it? June is often a little confused here, not quite spring and not quite summer, but today is perfect. And, of course, we do love the quiet; it all changes in July, when the tourists descend. You said on the telephone you had references from your previous jobs.

Oh. Lulled by Leni’s serene voice, Laura had almost forgotten why she was there. I have them . . .  She fumbled in her black patent purse. She’d known the purse was wrong for June the minute she saw Leni Salinger’s white straw hat; she knew everything else was wrong, too, when she pictured herself beside this tall, angular woman in perfectly pressed slacks and a cotton shirt with ivory buttons, her fingernails long and polished, her face and voice perfectly calm because she had nothing to worry about: she knew that whatever happened to her would always be wonderful.

I could never look like that because I’m never sure of anything.

Laura? Leni was studying her. You mustn’t be nervous; I don’t bite, you know, I don’t even growl, and we do try to make our staff comfortable, but I really must find out something about you, mustn’t I, before I bring you into our household.

"I’m sorry; I was thinking how beautiful you are, and how you don’t have nothing to worry about. I mean, you don’t have anything to . . . " Laura’s voice trailed away and she bit her lip. How could she be such a baby? She blurted things out and made the same stupid mistakes her grammar teacher always had marked her down for. What would this elegant lady, who never would blurt anything, or talk wrong, think of her? Trying to look confident, she handed Leni the three reference letters Ben had typed out and signed with made-up names, then held her breath as Leni read them.

Very impressive, Leni said. To have done so much at eighteen. I’m not familiar with the people who wrote these, and I must say they’ve been very careless—all of them, how surprising—in not including their telephone numbers. O’Hara, Stone, Phillips; goodness, even with a first initial, how difficult to find the right ones in the directory. Do you recall their telephone numbers?

No. Laura paused, just as she and Ben had rehearsed it. But I can find them. I mean, if you want, I’ll call everybody who has those initials until I get the right one and then you can talk to them. I really need this job; I’ll do anything . . . 

Well, Leni said thoughtfully, it’s only a temporary position, of course . . . and it’s hard enough to find anyone, much less someone truly anxious and agreeable . . . I’ll have to mull this over a bit. She gazed at Laura. Tell me about yourself. Where do you live?

New York. Ben had warned her it might get personal; she sat very straight and spoke carefully but quickly to get past this part as fast as she could. My parents are dead, and my brother and I lived with some relatives, but they didn’t really want us there, so a year ago we got our own place. I graduated high school last week.

After a moment, Leni said, And what else? Are you going to college?

Oh, I’d love to. If I could get the money . . . 

Leni nodded. So you need a job. But why not in New York? Why did you come to the Cape?

Laura hesitated an instant; they hadn’t rehearsed this part. Just to get away, you know. We have a tiny apartment, and it gets awfully hot in the summer and sort of closed in . . . And somebody at school said it was nice here. She looked beyond the porch at the sparkle of the ocean through the trees. It is. More beautiful than I ever thought.

Leni was watching her closely. And how did you get here? Do you have a car?

Laura felt a surge of impatience. Why did she keep asking questions? A friend drove us, she said briefly.

And how will you get back?

I hope we don’t have to. She looked at her hands. I mean, I was hoping you’d hire us and then we could just . . . stay.

Stay where? Leni asked gently.

Oh, we’d find a place. We bought a newspaper and there are some rooms for rent in Osterville and Centerville . . . If you’d give us a chance I know we could manage everything. You wouldn’t have to worry about us; we can take care of ourselves, you know.

Yes, I think you can, Leni murmured. She looked around. Yes, Allison, is there something you need?

A tennis partner. The young woman who stood at the foot of the porch steps was about Laura’s age and looked like a young Leni, as tall and angular, though her long blond hair was straight, while Leni’s was short and curled, and she had a touch of arrogance that Leni lacked. Patricia doesn’t feel like playing. Would you like a game?

My daughter, Allison, Leni said to Laura. This is Laura Fairchild, Allison. She’s applying for the job of Rosa’s assistant.

Rosa’s a sweetie, said Allison. She’s also an absolute tyrant in her kitchen; she’ll wear you out in a week. Or maybe she’ll take you under her wing and then you’ll gain fifty pounds. She turned to her mother. Can’t you just hear her telling Laura she’s too thin?

Am I? Laura asked anxiously. She was ashamed of her cotton dress and black patent shoes, bought at a resale shop, and the way her hair hung lankly around her face in the salt air of the Cape, and she knew her face had a city pallor beside these two tanned women, but she hadn’t thought about being thin. I won’t get the job if I’m skinny and ugly; they only want pretty people working for them. Ben and Clay always told her she was pretty, but they were her brothers. Nervously she pushed her hair behind her ears, tried to look taller on the chair’s slippery cushion, and kept her legs close together, her feet flat on the porch.

But it wasn’t just her looks that bothered her; she was envious of the warmth between Allison and her mother. She had never known anything like that, even when her mother was alive, and she envied them and liked them at the same time. It’s too bad we have to rob them, she thought.

Another one of Ben’s warnings came back to her. It’s better not to know the mark at all. But if it’s unavoidable, don’t get close; keep your distance. Laura felt a pang of regret. It might be nice to be close to Leni and Allison.

There’s nothing wrong with your figure; you mustn’t worry, Leni said. Well, perhaps a few pounds, a little rounding out . . . young girls do seem gaunt these days. They want to be willowy or sway like a reed or some such thing—it always seems to involve some damp and probably unhealthy plant. Yes, I do believe you could use a few pounds . . . Perhaps you don’t eat properly. Do you have a hot breakfast every day?

Laura and Allison looked at each other and burst out laughing. Oh, well, Leni sighed. I suppose you do hear that a great deal. But she wasn’t really thinking of her words; she was hearing Allison’s laughter and watching it banish the supercilious amusement that usually curved her daughter’s perfect lips without allowing laughter to escape. Leni often worried about Allison’s cool, amused silence; and at that moment, as her daughter and this strange girl continued to smile together, and even though she was sure those reference letters were faked, she decided to hire Laura Fairchild as a kitchen helper for the Salingers’ summer stay on Cape Cod.

*  *  *

Clay worked in the greenhouses and flower gardens shared by the whole family while Laura was at Rosa’s side in the kitchen of Felix and Leni’s house. It was the biggest in the compound, and Ben had instructed her to explore and sketch it for him. But by the end of their second week at the Cape she still had not done it, nor had she looked for Leni’s jewels so Ben could go straight to them when he broke in. She knew what they looked like because Leni was frequently photographed wearing them at dinner parties and balls—she even took them to the Cape for the big parties in July and August—but Laura had to find out where she kept them.

What are you waiting for? Clay demanded, looking up from his own drawing of the layout of the compound. They were sitting in the tiny two-room apartment Ben had rented for them over a garage in downtown Centerville before he went back to New York, and Clay had been trying to figure out the exact distance from the guardhouse to Leni’s bedroom window. How are we going to get out of here if you don’t do your part?

"I’m trying," Laura said. But Rosa expects me to be with her all the time.

Rosa’s a dictator, Clay said.

Rosa’s a sweetie. Laura remembered Allison saying that and wondered why she hadn’t seen her once since she started working in her parents’ house.

In fact she saw hardly anyone but Rosa and the house staff from the time she and Clay rode up in the mornings on the bicycles Ben had bought them to the time they rode away in the late afternoon. Leni was the only one of the Salingers to come to the kitchen; she came every afternoon, to plan the next day’s menus with Rosa. They sat in the sun that stretched the length of the great room, from the panes of the wide breakfast bay that faced the rose garden, swimming pool and tennis courts, all the way to the brick fireplace at the other end. On the long maple table recipes were fanned out, and books of menus from past summers, and with them the two women, like generals planning a campaign, put together the schedule for the next day: usually a luncheon for a small group and then a dinner party for fifteen or more. But none of the other family members came to the kitchen, and after two weeks Laura was not even sure who was at the compound and who was away.

In Maine, Rosa said when Laura finally worked up the courage to ask where Allison was. You’ll find this family is very big on travel. Somebody’s always somewhere and just when you think you know where everybody is, somebody comes back and somebody else goes.

They just leave their houses empty? Laura asked casually. In her white kitchen uniform, her hair in a neat ponytail, she felt almost like a cook, almost Rosa’s equal, and that made it easier to ask questions about the family. Still, as she stacked breakfast dishes in the double dishwasher, she was careful not to sound too curious.

Some of them are empty, Rosa replied. Some with the staff, some stuffed to the ceiling with houseguests. You’ll find this family is very big on houseguests, probably because they’re in the hotel business and they think something’s wrong if all the bedrooms aren’t full.

She chuckled and Laura smiled with her. It was easy to be comfortable with Rosa. At sixty-seven, with unflagging energy, she was short and round with small hands that were always moving, nimbly flicking pastry from marble board to pie plate, or cutting vegetables and stirring soup almost at the same time, or knitting a vest for her nephew while she waited for bread to rise or a roast to be done. She had promised to make Laura a sweater when the vest was finished. And no matter what she was doing, she talked steadily and shrewdly about the Salingers and the other families from New York and Boston who, generations before, had come to the towns of Osterville, Centerville, and Hyannis Port on Nantucket Sound, on the south coast of Cape Cod, to build the sprawling summer estates now being used by their children and grandchildren.

Mr. Owen built this one, Rosa said as she and Laura took salad ingredients from the wall of refrigerators and spread them on the long maple work table. It was the first time Laura realized that Rosa casually called all the Salingers, except Owen, by their first names. In 1920 he brought Mrs. Owen here—Iris, her name was, she was a lovely lady—and a year later Felix was born. That’s when I came; there were only the three of them, and I cooked and cleaned and took care of the baby, and Asa, too, when he was born a year after Felix, and had time to get married myself and not too long later be a widow, and some time after that, I nursed Mrs. Owen when she got sick and died, and all that in the space of ten years. Which I suppose is why I never married again; I was so busy being a mother to Felix and Asa, and Mr. Owen, too, at least for those first few years when he was mourning, I just never had time.

But who are all the others? Laura asked. I don’t even know all their names.

Rosa reeled them off in a rhythm that matched her busy hands, chopping and slicing vegetables for the salads she was making for lunch. Owen Salinger, founder of the Salinger hotel chain, had two sons, Felix and Asa; Felix had one daughter, Allison; Asa had a daughter, Patricia, by his first marriage. So Owen had only granddaughters. Not one grandson he can count on to keep his empire going, Rosa said. No nephews, either. This family is very big on women, and not one of them shows the slightest twinge of interest in running hotels. Mr. Owen’s great-nephew could do it—that’s Paul Janssen, the son of Leni’s sister, Barbara, and her husband, Thomas—but he’s something of a playboy, Paul is, and even if he does settle down, which I may not live long enough to see, it’s photography that makes his eyes light up, not hotels. Who’ll take over the company after Felix and Asa retire I can’t imagine.

As Laura asked questions, Rosa described them all, with their foibles and eccentricities and triumphs. Allison broke her finger on the slide when she was seven and never went near a swing set again, even though Felix offered her a hundred dollars because he wanted his daughter to have courage and said he’d buy it if he had to. She told Laura about the house Felix built for his father. It’s attached to this one; the door is at the end of the long gallery. After Mr. Owen gave this house to Felix and Leni, Leni wanted him to live with them in the summers—he has a mansion all to himself in Boston—but he said he liked being on his own and planned to build a small house for himself. Well, they argued and argued, and finally Mr. Owen said all right if he could draw the plans himself and also have a door he could lock. So everything worked out. When a man is seventy-eight, he should have people nearby, but he has a right to privacy, too.

She told Laura which houses belonged to the other family members, and where they lived the rest of the year—mostly New York, California, and Boston. And she told her who was in grammar school, high school, and college, who was working and where, and who spent most of the year in Europe.

Gradually Laura put together a picture of the whole family, even though she hadn’t yet met most of them. Owen was in Canada, visiting friends; Asa and his family would not arrive from Boston for another week; Leni’s sister, Barbara Janssen, her husband, Thomas, and their son, Paul, were returning from Europe in two weeks; others had arrived at the Cape but were always sailing or taking flying lessons or shopping, and when they came to Felix and Leni’s for dinner Laura had either left for the day or was working in the kitchen while the maids served.

You could serve, Rosa said, studying her. You’re not bad looking, you’re quick and neat, you have a nice smile which you don’t use often enough and if someone asked you to do something, you’d remember it. What a memory you have! I told Leni you’d memorized everything in the kitchen in one day; never have I seen such a memory, I told her.

Laura flushed and turned away, striking her elbow against the table. Shit, she muttered, nursing it.

But you’re not ready, Rosa went on. You need to be smoothed out. A real lady doesn’t use vulgarity, my young miss. A real lady doesn’t have a temper, either, and I’ve seen signs of one in you. And you have a lot to learn. You’ll find this family is very big on form, and you don’t know which side to serve or take a plate from, or how to bring somebody a clean knife, or when to refill a water glass. It’s a wonder to me those people wrote those fabulous letters about you, unless of course they just liked your smile.

Laura flushed again and concentrated on slicing red peppers. I didn’t serve; I worked in kitchens.

My eye, Rosa said pleasantly. You never worked in a kitchen, my little Laura, not a decent one, anyway, unless it was to wash dishes and scrub the floor. She watched Laura’s face. You needn’t worry, I’m not about to tell anyone, or ask questions, either. I’ve been there myself, you know, a long time ago: poor and hungry and willing to do any job people would give me. I’m sure you worked hard for those people; I’m sure they liked you and that’s why they wrote those letters. You’ll find I’m very big on instincts, and my instinct says I trust you.

Laura’s hand slipped and the blade slashed her finger. Damn it! she cried, slamming the knife on the counter. Tears filled her eyes. She wanted to curl up inside the circle of Rosa’s plump arms; she wanted to tell her how wonderful it was to be in her warm kitchen with her warm voice and her trust. But she had to hold it all back, just as she had to keep her distance from Leni and Allison. She couldn’t return Rosa’s trust, she couldn’t let herself like anyone in this family, she couldn’t let down her guard.

She was there to rob them. And she couldn’t ever let herself forget it.

*  *  *

The hallway was silent and cool and her feet slid silently on the hardwood floor as she opened doors for a quick survey, then closed them to go on to the next room. She had already sketched the first floor: Owen’s house, at one end, was a blank, since she’d never been inside, but she had drawn the kitchen at the other end, and the full width of the house stretching between them, with a long porch in front and the wide glassed-in gallery along the back, opening onto the living room, den and dining room.

Now, for the first time, she was on the second floor. Guest rooms across the back of the house, each with its own bath; Allison’s suite along the whole east side—bigger than our apartment in New York—then Felix’s office, bedroom, dressing room and bath, then Leni’s sitting room, dressing room and bath, and her bedroom on the west side.

That was the one she wanted. Silently she opened the bedroom door and slipped inside, taking in with a swift glance the seafoam and ivory colors, ivory shag rugs on gleaming hardwood floors, the bed in the next room draped in seafoam silk and ivory lace. The rooms were cool and serene, like Leni. Laura thought of what it would be like to come to a mother in rooms like these, and curl up and talk about the things she worried about.

Well, I never will, that’s all. And it doesn’t matter; I’ve outgrown that.

She had to hurry. She surveyed the spacious rooms with a more calculating eye. Sitting room desk, coffee table and armoire—all of them with drawers. In the bedroom and adjoining dressing room, four bureaus and a dressing table, nightstands flanking the bed, a wall of closets. Swiftly and silently, Laura opened them all, her slender fingers slipping among silk and cotton and lace without disturbing one perfect fold; she looked beneath the furniture without moving it; she tilted pictures from the walls without changing one angle.

Nothing, nothing . . . where would she keep them . . . there’s no safe . . . Then she came to the last closet, and found it locked. Finally . . . She knelt before it. She could get it open; she’d done it so many times. She reached in her pocket for the small set of steel picks Ben had bought her for her birthday, and it was at that moment that the sitting room door opened.

What the hell—! Allison’s voice exclaimed. She stood in the doorway, her eyes changing as she recognized Laura. A burglar! she cried in mock alarm. How terrifying! But I know you! Rosa’s new assistant . . . yes?

Laura nodded. She had leaped to her feet but she was dizzy and her legs were weak, and she leaned against the closet. Her throat was dry, her heart was pounding; she thrust her clenched fists deep inside the pockets of her uniform to hide the picks in her shaking hands. Rosa had said Allison wasn’t due back from Maine until tomorrow, and everyone else was spending the day on Felix’s yacht. It was supposed to be empty up here all afternoon.

But what are you doing in my mother’s room . . . Laura, isn’t it? Have we started cooking dinner up here? Or were you looking for my great-grandmother’s sterling that she brought over from Austria? It isn’t here; Rosa could have told you it’s in the dining room commode.

Laura shook her head. I wasn’t looking— She cleared her dry throat. I wasn’t looking for sterling. She took a step forward. I ought to be downstairs . . . 

Indeed you should. But first let’s have a talk. Allison strode across the room, grasped Laura’s arm, and forced her to walk beside her out of the room, down the full length of the hall, and into another suite at the opposite corner from Leni’s. This is mine. Perfectly private. Sit down. Laura stood indecisively. "I said, sit down."

Laura sat down. Her white cotton uniform seemed plain and harsh in the delicate white wicker chair with its chintz cushion. The room was bright and airy, in gold and white with lamps and throw pillows of sea green and indigo blue. It seemed that all the colors of the Cape were there, shimmering in the sunlight that streamed across the ocean and the beach and the smooth lawns of the estate for the sole purpose of brightening Allison Salinger’s rooms.

Finally Laura’s eyes rested on the stack of suitcases in the corner of the room. I came back early, Allison said. I was exceedingly bored. She had watched Laura survey the sitting room and the bedroom, visible through its open door, and now she gave her a keen look. Maybe this isn’t the first time you’ve been here. Laura, frozen in her chair, said nothing. Have you already been here?

Laura shook her head.

My God, have I petrified you into silence? What are you afraid of? It isn’t a crime to look at people’s rooms; I poke around to see how my friends fix up theirs; why shouldn’t you do the same? I won’t turn you in, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t care what you do; you work for Rosa, not me. It would be different if you’d been going through Mother’s closets; if the alarm had gone off there’d be hell to pay.

Laura’s heart began to pound again, the blood hammering in her ears. I should have thought . . . I should have known . . . What’s happened to me that I don’t do things right in this house? Alarm? she asked, making it sound as casual as she could.

A siren that wakes the dead. It’s because of Mother’s jewelry, you know, all the incredible stuff my great-grandmother brought from Austria with the sterling. My father keeps telling Mother to keep it in the safe in Boston, but she says what good is jewelry if you can’t wear it. If something is really important to you, you ought to do whatever you want with it, right? She loves all those things because they came from her grandmother to her mother and then to her and someday they’ll be mine, so if she wants to wear them anywhere in the world, why shouldn’t she? What do you do besides explore bedrooms?

Laura flushed deeply. For the first time she was angry. Allison was playing with her like a cat trying to trip up a mouse. I work, she said shortly and began to stand up.

Not yet, Allison snapped. Her voice made it clear that she knew exactly where the power lay between the two of them. I said I wanted to talk. You work for Rosa. What do you like best? Do you like to cook?

Her tone had become warm and curious, catching Laura off guard. I guess so. I haven’t done it very long.

You haven’t? Mother said you’d done it forever. Lots of good references, she said.

Oh, sure, Laura said swiftly. I’ve worked in kitchens for years. I thought you meant cooking here, for your family.

Well, Allison said when she stopped, do you like cooking for my family?

Yes.

What else do you like?

Oh, reading and listening to music. And I’m getting to like the beaches around here.

And boys?

No.

Oh, come on. How old are you?

Eighteen.

Same as me. And no boys? Not even one little date? Everybody dates, for heaven’s sake.

Why do you care? Laura burst out. I’m just a cook—not even that, really; I’m just Rosa’s assistant. What do you care whether I date or not?

I don’t know, Allison said frankly. She contemplated Laura. "There’s something about you—something about your eyes—like you’re thinking of two things at once and I don’t have all your attention. It’s like a game, getting to know what you’re thinking, getting you to . . . see me. Do you know what I mean?"

No, said Laura flatly.

I’ll bet you do. You’re not from around here, are you, like most of the summer help?

I’ve lived in New York.

You still live in New York?

Yes.

So what do you do in New York?

Laura tossed her head. I go out with five university guys. A couple of them are just friends but the other ones I see a lot, and on weekends I pick one or the other of them and we go to their apartment and screw. Sometimes I’m with two of them at once. Is there anything else you want to know?

Allison tried to stare her down but Laura stared back. Prying bitch. Who says everybody dates? What do you know about it? Do you have a good time? Allison asked curiously. Her voice had changed again—not quite believing Laura, but not quite sure.

Confused, Laura was silent.

I don’t, Allison said. "I’ve been with three, no four, guys, one at a time, I’m not gutsy enough for two at once, and I don’t much like it. I tell myself I should because everybody else does—or at least they say they do—but, I don’t know, all the boys seem so damn young. If you have college guys, you’re lucky. They’re probably better. The ones I know can’t talk. All they want to do is get in your pants, and as soon as they get a finger in they think they’ve got it made and they start to babble and slobber and it’s all so stupid. I mean, I have a brain, and feelings, but every boy I know treats me like some kind of doll they can play with but don’t have to pay much attention to. I think they ought to carry a cantaloupe with a hole in it and whenever they get the urge just stick their cock in and jack off, and then they’d never have to make conversation at all."

Laura broke into nervous giggles and Allison giggled, too, and then they were laughing as they had when they met. They’re probably scared to talk, Laura said. They can feel like big men when they screw, but they sound pretty silly when you want them to talk about something serious, and I guess they know that.

That’s it; you’ve got it. Allison sighed. "You know that bit about the cantaloupe? I’ve been thinking that for a long time